Did you know ketchup can remove tarnish? Find out about some reported uses (beyond eating!) for food, drinks, and ingredients in your kitchen.

Did you know ketchup can remove tarnish? Or that vegetable oil can fuel your diesel engine? Find out more about these other reported uses (beyond eating!) for food, drinks, and other ingredients in your kitchen. Want more tricks for kitchen items? Check out these creative new uses for kitchen products.

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Beyond Eating and Drinking

Beyond Eating and Drinking

These favorite foods, drinks, and ingredients aren't your standard one-trick ponies. Find out how some people claim to use them outside the kitchen (or, perhaps, on the kitchen floor) to clean, deodorize, decorate, and so much more!

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Oatmeal

Oatmeal

Uses: Acne remedy, skin soother, deodorizer

Use this breakfast staple to keep you healthy inside and out. Oatmeal is a favored home remedy to treat acne and soothe iritated skin. Plus, you can use it to neutralize odors (place an open container of oatmeal in the fridge).

Beyond Eating and Drinking

These favorite foods, drinks, and ingredients aren't your standard one-trick ponies. Find out how some people claim to use them outside the kitchen (or, perhaps, on the kitchen floor) to clean, deodorize, decorate, and so much more!

Don Farrall/Getty Images

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Oatmeal

Uses: Acne remedy, skin soother, deodorizer

Use this breakfast staple to keep you healthy inside and out. Oatmeal is a favored home remedy to treat acne and soothe iritated skin. Plus, you can use it to neutralize odors (place an open container of oatmeal in the fridge).

Vodka

Is there anything vodka can't do? The liquor is useful in the bathroom, kitchen, laundry room, and even outdoors. To find out how to use vodka for all of its surprising non-drinking uses, check out these explanations and instructions.

Vegetable Oil

Citrus Peel

Use: Deodorizer

It's a familiar scenario: You walk into the kitchen and your nose crinkles. There's a less-than-pleasant smell. You check the garbage. Already emptied. That leaves one culprit: the garbage disposal. Banish the stink with a little help from the fruits in your fridge. Drop citrus peels down the disposal and run it.

Olive Oil

Uses: Lubricant

Got a pesky zipper that just won't budge? How about some squeaky doors? Attack those problems with olive oil: apply the cooking oil to the teeth of the zipper and the door hinges. Plus, check out more surprising uses for olive oil.

Brian Hagiwara/Getty Images

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Pickle Juice

Use: Snow/Ice Melter

When a major snowstorn threatened the East coast in early 2011, one New Jersey county sprayed a unique substance on sidewalks before the snow started piling up: a mixture resembling pickle juice. The briny liquid acts like salt, melting ice and snow. Test the theory: Next time your steps are snowy or icy and you're out of sidewalk salt, head to fridge, finish up the pickles, and dump the liquid outside.

Vinegar

Uses: Shine floors, dissolve adhesive bonds

Does your wood floor look a little dull? Here's a trick: mix nine parts warm water with one part white vinegar, then wipe down the floors. Once the floors are shiny, you can attack the annoying sticky residue left behind on products after a label is removed next. A bit of vinegar will act as a solvent to help you remove the adhesive.